I’m Blessed

We had a bit of a blizzard yesterday.  I was determined not to get too down about it, mostly since there was nothing to be done about it.  Over all, I love a good snow storm, and the only thing bad about this one is it has come in April.  I felt a bit awkward to watch a storm outside and not have Christmas decorations all around me.

The storm didn’t start blowing really hard until the afternoon here, so after church we had a more-than-usual quiet Sunday afternoon.  The little kids took naps, the bigger kids watched a movie, and Knut and I took our places by the fireplace.  He read more of the biography on George Washington that he’s enjoying so much, and I knit like crazy.  I have knit more in the last 3 days than I have in the last 3 weeks, and my hands are a bit sore from it as my little muscles don’t seem to be trained in holding needles as well, and my knitting calluses seem almost all gone.

It felt so good.

This morning I’m blessed by the calm of the snow keeping the outside world out.  I’m blessed by a husband who let me sleep in past 8am just because he could.  Ingrid cooperated as well.  She finally went to bed for the night around midnight last night, but she forgot to get up at 4am to eat as she normally does.  She slept until 8-ish in the cradle next to me.  So it was 8 uninterrupted hours.  Blessed!

When the movie was done yesterday, we brought out Scrabble for the first time for the kids.  It’s is my favorite board game, and I don’t usually let them touch it because any board game they touch seems to involve me finding pieces over the following 3 months in the 4 corners of the house.  David wasn’t quite old enough, but Silje caught on right away.  I was so excited to play with her, but it turned out to be a bad idea because Solveig and Elias wanted to scatter the tiles to the 4 corners of the house.  So after one quick game it got put away out of sight again.

After Solveig and Elias went to bed for the night, though, we brought out Sequence to play with Silje and David.  They love that game, and are both pretty good at it, although David has about the worst “poker face” of all time, and if he draws a wild card, everyone in the county knows it.

I’m so blessed to have reached this let-the-older-kids-stay-up-late-because-they-are-fun age.  I love the school age.

I love all of the long talks we’ve had with one of our kids this week.  We forgot to give David the “trial” fish oil for 3 days this week, and we had 3 days of outbursts and temper tantrums until I realized what was going on.  We got him back on this easy supplement, and he has returned to his passionate, but controlled self.  (Well, at least most of the time.)  The hard part about his tantrums is that getting him over the hump into functioning again takes so long.  It’s not a simple discipline situation like our other kids.  First he needs to go in his room to calm down (and to make sure he can’t hurt anyone when he is angry) and after a few minutes, I go up there and we talk it out and go over consequences.  He’s at the age where that makes sense.

Sometimes the talks last an hour.  Although I don’t like when my son loses his temper, I have to say I have been very blessed by this last week’s abundance of talks with him.  As I was explaining to him why the boundaries and rules Knut and I have set up for him are unmovable, I started talking to him about God’s plan for him.

I was talking to him about what God thinks about him.  I talked about God’s law, and God’s gospel.
I was telling him how God has a great plan for his life.
I told him the story about the knot in his umbilical cord when he was born.  I guess I never told him that story before, because he was shocked to hear it.  The knot was so tight, that the doctor said that had he been born 3 days later, he would have likely been stillborn.  He came on just the right day, even though the calendar said 3 weeks early.
We talked about how God equips us for the works he has set before us, and how we have set up his school, and the house rules all for his equipping.

David is so changed after this last week.  He’s still my passionate son, but he is intent on serving the family.  He was first out the door this morning to shovel the driveway.

Disciplining a toddler or preschooler has so much to do with gaining obedience.  It’s important for safety and sanity.  One does not reason easily with a 2 year old.  However, disciplining a school aged kid has so much with gaining their heart.  I love this stage of reason.  I am so blessed to be a part of this great work God is doing in my kids’ lives.

I am so, so blessed.